december book reviews

Haven’t done one of these in what feels like a while – here’s December’s book reviews!

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Sabrina – Nick Drnaso
4/5 Stars
☆☆☆☆

I’ve never read a graphic novel before (they’re not really my thing) but Jess mentioned this in one of her book haul videos and the second I saw the cover I was like…I need this book.

This is the first graphic novel I’ve ever read as like I said, they’re not really my thing, but I definitely enjoyed this one. It was the front cover that initially drew me to it because it was so basic (for lack of better wording) and vintage that I just thought…that’s me.

It feels like a mini project almost, this great hardback with drawings and pictures…I read it over the space of 2 days and could’ve read another 200 pages if there were any because I really did enjoy it. It was interesting and I enjoyed the characters, I thought they were all portrayed in exactly the right way. What I’m about to say sounds like an insult but I mean this in a positive way – the drawings are very dull and sparse…quite vintage looking and I really, really enjoyed this style as I’m not into the whole cartoon thing which is why I’ve never picked up a graphic novel before. I will however definitely be picking up another one of Nick Drnaso’s. Overall I gave this 4 stars because I really did enjoy it and will definitely be picking up more of his work – his drawings were really great and he didn’t overplay the characters, it was very normal which in some instances backfires but in this sense it really worked. It was very normal and relatable to current day and therefore I feel as though you were able to understand the story in greater depth than you would have if it was set during a different time (or didn’t touch on modern day events). I also had a lot of questions throughout (which I still haven’t found the answers to yet despite endlessly trawling through the internet) so this novel is also great for discussions…there’s a lot to talk about. Overall I’d say this was a job well done, it gets a huge thumbs up from me!

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everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too – Jomny Sun
5/5 Stars
☆☆☆☆☆

I knew I was going to like this book before I even read it because I’ve followed this guy on Twitter for a couple of years now and always enjoyed his content, but I didn’t know I was going to like it this much. It’s a book with funny cartoon drawings and purposely misspelled words with endless grammatical mistakes and I was crying like a baby because it was so beautiful. Someone on Booktube recommended this and said that they’d cried whilst reading it and I thought to myself…how? Crying over cartoons and misspelled sentences, what do you mean? But oh my goodness it’s so beautiful. It’s so pure and wonderful and beautiful and I cried because it was so sad yet happy at the same time and it was uplifting and lovely and wonderful and it made me so emotional. When a book has the power to do that with just a few drawings and sentences on each page…you know it’s art. I adore this book. Everyone says the same thing about it and I couldn’t agree more with them – this really is the best book ever. Highly highly recommend, it was so innocent and pure yet very real and honest at the same time. It was beautiful. I’m so glad I decided to buy it.

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Crown of Midnight – Sarah J. Maas
4/5 Stars
☆☆☆☆

To see my review of the first book in the Throne of Glass series, click here.

Crown of Midnight is the second book in the Throne of Glass series and I feel like as this series is quite long (currently 8 books in total) I might end up repeating myself in each review as I’m one of those weirdos that doesn’t really seem to have favourites in series as the whole story for me kind of just blends into one. Anyway, I enjoyed this book. It was more developed than the first one because of course, we were now into the action and getting the actual story underway so I enjoyed that aspect of it and it definitely kept me wanting to carry on with the next book once I’d read this one. In terms of things I didn’t like I will say that the last 100 pages for me were a slog to get through because in comparison to the rest of it, it just felt really boring. Like the book needed to be wrapped up ready for the next one and so it really slowed down, the end took me ages to get through because I couldn’t read it all in one go due to becoming extremely bored after a couple of pages. I also wanted more romance !! I know the series isn’t about that but I felt like after the big romantic event was over there was just nothing for the rest of the book, so that was a little underwhelming. Despite all of this I gave it 4 stars because I did enjoy it and as I mentioned, I definitely want to carry on with the rest of the series.

I have never read or heard of any of these books but honestly, none of them particularly seem like the sort of books I like to read. I am a Sarah Dessen and Kody Keplinger lover through and through oops. xx

“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”